The Overlooked Costs of Organizational Restructuring

Organizational reshuffles and team renaming efforts might seem like routine housekeeping in larger companies, but they often come with hidden costs. What might look like a simple effort to bring consistency or reflect a new strategy can introduce unexpected friction - especially in engineering organizations. While the intent is usually good, the downstream impact on communication, collaboration, and productivity is easy to underestimate.

Team names matter more than we think. They aren't just labels - they're shorthand used across the org to direct questions, escalate issues, and collaborate across departments. When those names change, people get confused. Suddenly, references in Slack threads, Confluence pages, or onboarding documents no longer make sense. You find yourself wondering, "Wait, what happened to the Platform Team? Is that what the Systems Enablement Group is now?"

And then there's the tooling. Many engineering teams rely on a range of internal systems - agile project management tools, wikis, CI/CD dashboards, internal documentation, team directories - all of which reference team names and structures. Updating those across the board takes time, effort, and coordination. Realistically, not all of them will get updated at the same time. The result? Inconsistent terminology, broken links, and more time wasted trying to make sense of it all.

To be clear, there are legitimate reasons to restructure. Sometimes teams grow or shift their focus. Sometimes a re-org is necessary to reflect a new mission or strategic priority. But the point is - these changes come with overhead. Communication suffers. Productivity dips. Confusion increases. It's not just a quick rename in a spreadsheet - it's an operational cost.

Before making changes to your org chart, it's worth asking:

• Do we really need this now?
• Are we in a stable enough place to absorb the disruption?
• Have we just introduced other changes that are still settling in?
• Do we have the bandwidth to follow through with all the necessary updates across systems and documentation?

Change for the sake of consistency can backfire if the timing isn't right. Sometimes, the most helpful thing leadership can do is hold off on reorganizing until the dust has settled elsewhere.